It Really Is That Simple

 t isn’t hard. It’s really quite simple. God is real. God is universal. Grace is universal. God loves everyone. No exceptions. Not one. There is no hell. God condemns no one. All killing is wrong including when it’s done by a government in a prison or in a war. No law or governmental order, be it from a legal system or a military, can make killing anything but sin. Yes, society has the right and even the duty to protect itself from dangerous individuals. That does not mean it has the right to kill anyone. Everyone is equal. Absolutely everyone. No exceptions. Not one. Ever. God is love. Period. Love beyond our understanding, but infinitely more loving than we are not less. All morality is grounded in love. Not in rules. Not in judgment. Not in condemnation. Not condemnation of anyone ever. Love is all that makes life worth living. Not wealth. Not success. Not power. Love. Period. Always. No exceptions. The Bible isn’t divine. It is a collection of ancient documents that express understandings of ancient cultures that have next to nothing in common with ours except that both those cultures and ours are both human.. It is a collection of symbols and of stories, some of which are myths that point beyond themselves to God and some of which are nothing of the sort. God doesn’t want us to make everyone think like us. God wants us to spread love, peace, nonviolence, and justice as broadly around our country and around the world as we can. It really is that simple. 

And we keep insisting on making it all so much more complicated. And so much more less attractive. We make God a judge and condemner rather than a universal lover, and we think God calls us to be judged and condemners too. We make morality be about rigid rules rather than about love. We justify human beings killing other human beings in a myriad of circumstances. We condemn a wide variety of people for being who they are. We cite the Great Commandment and say it is our duty to convert everyone to our version of Christianity. We even say it is moral for us to use deception, coercion, and even violence to do it. We call people sinners simply for being who God made them to be. We don’t enact love in our public policies. Rather, we institutionalize violence and a preference for the rich rather than a preference for the poor. We won’t live with something as simple as God is love and God’s love determines everything. Yet it really is that simple. Period.